‘Today, Friday, will be the last day the Student Volunteer Army (SVA) is mobilised en masse – from here on in the effort will shift to the rear guard, Squadrons and Street Team. To celebrate comedians and musicians will descend on UCSA carpark this afternoon.

SVA field team leader, Sam Johnson, says yesterday we had 550 volunteers focusing on Bexley and nearby suburbs. “Today we’ll have three teams focused on cleaning up school grounds, one bus load will help clean up a retirement home, two bus loads of volunteers will head back into Bexley and a bus load each to Shirley and Burwood to clean up isolated deposits of silt.

We’re encouraging everyone to turn up at 8am for breakfast, we’ll then deploy and take the city back from the silt before returning to UCSA for a victory party. “Every single volunteer has worked so hard to restore normality to Christchurch’s suburbs, I’m extremely proud to have been involved. We’ll have comedians and musicians, food and drinks in the carpark – all of which has been donated.”

Yesterday 294 Squadrons, made up of three to five people who have their own transport and equipment, were assigned jobs registered on SVA website, www.sva.org.nz. SVA IT head Jonas Bergler, says “yesterday was a huge effort, we deployed our largest number of squadrons to date and we received help from Federated Farmers. “We still have 700 jobs left and those that aren’t completed today will be completed next week. “We’ll be taking the weekend off though as many of us have been working non stop since last Wednesday.”

The third part of our operation, Street Team, provides face-to-face information to eastern suburb residents who are still without services. SVA head quarter’s team leader, Louis Brown, says yesterday 140 troops delivered 70,000 new informative MSD fliers to residents in New Brighton, Aranui, Bexley, Wainoni and Avonside. They also gave donated baking goods to residents as well. To date 300,000 information pamphlets from various organisations have been delivered across the city.

Volunteers wanting to take part in the Army do not have to be students, but do need to have some identification. Today’s muster is at 8am in the UCSA car park, 90 Ilam Road. People of all ages and abilities, including those unable to wield a shovel, will be welcomed with open arms.